"Summer Road" getting re-drafted...

In 2010 I wrote a screenplay called "Summer Road", which was submitted to the BBC Writersroom and got a full read-through. It's important to note that getting a full read-through at the Writersroom is a tough ask in itself. They get 10,000 scripts a year and kick back the vast majority after a mere 10 pages - regardless of whether you agree with their system and approach to vetting unsolicited screenplays or not, those are the breaks when it comes to the Writersroom - so, point being, getting a full read-through is not exactly a common occurrence there.

Anyway - I've returned to this comedy drama to give it a bit of a bashing around to bring it up to my current screenwriting standard - and then put it out to a couple more places and bank it before advancing onto the next screenplay project I have in mind (which won't be feature length, by the by) ... after which I'm planning on seeking out an agent.

So that's future plans, but right now I've just started the re-writing process on Summer Road (Draft 4.1) - I'm at page 20 (of 107, currently) and so far the biggest changes have come to a handful of flashback sequences. In the previous incarnation of the script I was telling more than I was showing, so I'm reversing that situation and re-writing it according to my current standard.

It has been a good 18 months since I touched this screenplay and I'm able to weed out bits that no longer work, or which feel too 'on-the-nose', while adding a few more flourishes here and there. A key aim will be to re-work the entire second act - re-aiming the focus of the plot - and hopefully bring the page count down. 90 pages would be lovely, but I don't think I can tell this story quite that tightly (you don't want to hack and slash at the expense of your script after all) - but I'll be looking to try and get closer to that figure, even if the page count has - for the moment - packed on a couple of pages up front.

I think it will take a good couple of deep passes to do everything to it that I want to do, but it's kind of nice to head back to this script after spending so long on Allen Bridge, which I'm immensely proud of, but it's a good change of pace. That said, I'm also really looking forward to what I have planned for my next new screenplay and what will come after that - as I've aluded to above.